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Did Trump Just Empty America’s Missile Arsenal on Iran?

Two months into Donald Trump’s war on Iran, the Pentagon is running on fumes. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly ten times the number we buy each year. We’ve burned through around 1,100 long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to our entire remaining stockpile. More than 1,200 Patriot interceptors are gone. Up to half of our THAAD interceptors used. We’re yanking missiles from South Korea and bombs from Europe just to feed this war. Pentagon officials say we spent $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days alone. Senator Jack Reed says it could take years to rebuild. Trump started this war without Congress. He’s handed China and Russia a gift, and working Americans will pay the bill.

Is the Pentagon Now a Cash Machine for Trump’s Kids?

It’s absurd. It’s disgusting. And they’re bragging on Fox. Eric Trump went on Maria Bartiromo’s show Thursday to boast, yes boast, that his robotics company Foundation Future Industries just landed a $24 million Pentagon contract. A son of the president who’s never worked a day in defense or robotics, suddenly rolling in Pentagon cash. This comes on top of a $620 million Pentagon loan that went to a rare earth company backed by Don Junior’s venture fund. Elizabeth Warren calls it corruption in plain sight. Ilhan Omar calls them the most corrupt first family of all time. A professor at St. Andrews said the U.S. government is now one of the most corrupt governments on earth. American kids are dying in Iran. Trump’s kids are cashing in. This is banana republic stuff, and Republicans in Congress say nothing.

Why Is Trump’s EPA Hunting Abortion Pills in Your Drinking Water?

Lee Zeldin’s EPA just told states to start testing drinking water for abortion pills and birth control pills. 374 drugs on the new list. It includes misoprostol, methotrexate, daily contraceptive pills, and the NuvaRing. Here’s the thing. There’s no scientific evidence these medications are polluting our water. None. So why is Trump’s team doing this? Because they’ve lost in the courts. They’ve lost at the FDA. They’ve lost in Congress. Now they’re weaponizing environmental law to go after reproductive freedom through the back door. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon calls it uterus surveillance, and he’s right. If they can flag abortion pills as water contaminants, they lay the groundwork to ban them. Two-thirds of abortions in this country use these pills. Birth control protects millions of women. Trump’s people want to treat it all like toxic waste.

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Republicans Tank in Their Own Fox News Poll

The numbers are in, and they’re ugly for the GOP. A brand new Fox News poll, Fox News, found Democrats now lead Republicans on handling the economy for the first time since 2010. Trump’s approval sits at 42 percent. Seventy percent of voters say the economy feels worse for their family. A separate Cook Political Report poll of 36 battleground districts that Trump himself carried in 2024 shows Democrats now leading by six points. One elections expert called it really astonishing, noting Democrats are winning independents by 25 points. Trump’s disapproval among independents hit 70 percent. Translation. Working people are waking up. The war is unpopular, prices are climbing, the corruption is obvious, and voters are getting ready to deliver a verdict. November 2026 is coming fast, and the MAGA coalition is cracking.

Why Are Americans Walking Away from the Spring Housing Market?

This is supposed to be the hot season for real estate. It isn’t. Existing home sales just hit a nine-month low. Mortgage rates, which had dipped near six percent in February, spiked above 6.6 percent in March after Trump’s Iran war spooked the bond markets. Pending sales are down. Contract cancellations are up. Buyers are sitting on the sidelines, and sellers are refusing to give up the low rates they locked in during the pandemic. The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index just hit a record low. Gas is up a buck a gallon. The median home price sits at a record $408,800. For young families, the dream of buying a first home keeps slipping further out of reach. This is what happens when reckless war and cratering confidence collide with working people’s biggest purchase.

The Best Sleep of Her Life

And finally, some good sleep news. Astronaut Christina Koch, just back from her Artemis II trip around the Moon, says the best sleep of her life happened in space. In zero gravity, she said, your body floats into the exact position it wants. No rolling over. No stiffness. No flipping the pillow to the cool side. Just peaceful, weightless rest. For everyone out there staring at the ceiling at three in the morning, wouldn’t that be something. A night where your body just lets go. May we, and I’m thinking me, all find that kind of rest, even here on Earth.

And that’s the way it is, Today Friday, April 24, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is the Justice Department Building a Secret National Voter List Behind Your Back?

A coalition of voting rights groups dropped a lawsuit on the Trump Justice Department this week to stop what they’re calling a massive federal voter surveillance operation. Since last fall, the DOJ has been demanding voter rolls from every state in the country. We’re talking names, addresses, partial Social Security numbers, party affiliation. Twelve Republican-led states have already handed it all over. Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. The DOJ has sued thirty more states and DC for refusing. Common Cause, the ACLU, CREW, Protect Democracy, and Harvard Law’s Democracy Clinic filed suit Tuesday in federal court in Washington. They say no federal statute authorizes this sprawling voter surveillance operation, and they want every file deleted. Meanwhile, Homeland Security has quietly rebuilt a database called SAVE so states can run their entire voter rolls through it. Folks, this is the federal government quietly building a national voter list outside the Constitution. It’s how you purge voters. It’s how you intimidate them. And it’s how democracies die in broad daylight.

Did Texas Border Voters Just Turn on Trump?

Down in the Rio Grande Valley, in Texas’s 15th Congressional District, the mood is shifting fast. That’s one of the poorest districts in the state, heavily Latino, and it flipped hard for Trump in 2024. Now folks there are saying something powerful. Latin Grammy winner Bobby Pulido is running for the seat as a Democrat, and he’s listening. Pulido told The New York Times that Democrats have to stop lecturing and start talking economics in the language people actually use. People down there don’t call themselves poor, he said. They call themselves broke. Because broke means tomorrow we make it. Michelle Renee Rangel, who owns a restaurant called Falfurrias, cheered Trump’s election night victory. She and her husband voted for him. Now she’s hosting meet-and-greets for the Democrat. Her exact words? We made a mistake. Pulido predicts the backlash is going to be, in his words, very, very big. This is what happens when working families finally realize they got conned by a billionaire who promised prosperity and delivered tariffs, raids, and rising prices.

Gerrymandering for Me but Not for Thee

Texas Republican Chip Roy and Florida Republican Byron Donalds are losing their minds. Why? Virginia voters just approved a ballot measure letting state Democrats redraw the congressional map to favor their own party. Roy went on Fox Business and called Democrats Marxists who want to destroy the country. He’s begging the Virginia Supreme Court to ride in and save the Republican Party from losing seats. Byron Donalds went on Newsmax and cried about insanity, complaining that Democrats are stripping suburban precincts out to flip seats. Here’s the joke. The whole gerrymandering arms race started in Roy’s own Texas, where Republicans rigged their mid-decade map to hand themselves extra House seats out of thin air. Florida’s trying to do the exact same thing right now. Both states twisted their districts into Republican pretzels after 2020. For two solid decades Republicans rigged maps while Democrats played nice and lost seat after seat. Those days are finally over. Democracy doesn’t die when one side fights back. It dies when the other side keeps cheating alone and calls it patriotism.

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Will the Senate Ever Stop Trump’s Endless War?

For the fifth time, Senate Republicans blocked a resolution to rein in Donald Trump’s war on Iran. Wednesday’s vote was 46 to 51. The resolution, sponsored by Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, would’ve forced Trump to pull American forces out of Iran unless Congress explicitly authorized the war. Rand Paul was the only Republican with the guts to vote yes. John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote no. The war started February 28, when the US, alongside Israel, launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader and top commanders. That’s eight weeks of American bombs, American dollars, and American troops in harm’s way, with zero authorization from Congress. Baldwin compared it to the Iraq war, which started fast and dragged on eight long years. The fight over the Strait of Hormuz is keeping energy prices sky-high. Tens of billions of dollars already burned. Chuck Schumer says Democrats will force these votes every single week until the war ends. This is exactly what the founders feared. One man, no checks, picking which country to bomb next. That’s not a republic. That’s an empire running on autopilot.

Remember When Trump Told America to Inject Bleach?

Six years ago today, on April 23, 2020, Donald Trump stood at a White House podium and suggested Americans could fight COVID by somehow injecting disinfectant into their bodies and shining UV light inside themselves. Dr. Deborah Birx sat behind him looking like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole. Poison control calls spiked across multiple states within hours. Trump later claimed he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t. The country was shut down. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Refrigerator trucks served as morgues outside New York hospitals. Mass graves were dug on Hart Island. And the President of the United States was musing about Lysol as medicine on live television. Apparently a whole lot of conservative voters forgot exactly who this man was before they put him back in the White House. Because the one lesson Trump took from that catastrophe wasn’t humility. It wasn’t science. It was this. If you just lie loud enough and long enough, half the country will forget it ever happened. And now he’s running the whole government that way.

Will the Old “Chicken in Every Pot” Scam Be Heard by California?

And finally, a story so absurd you couldn’t make it up. At California’s first gubernatorial debate Wednesday night, Trump-endorsed candidate Steve Hilton, the former Fox News host, took the stage alongside Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democrats Katie Porter, billionaire Tom Steyer, ex-HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. Eric Swalwell dropped out under a cloud of sexual misconduct allegations. Moderator Frank Buckley asked Hilton why Californians should trust him when 62 percent of them disapprove of Trump. Hilton’s big answer? He and Donald Trump together are going to lower gas prices. In California. You know, the state Trump loves to attack on Truth Social at three in the morning. Folks, this is the oldest snake oil in American politics. In 1928 Herbert Hoover promised a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage. Six months later the stock market crashed. Trump promised cheap gas, cheap eggs, cheap everything. Gas is up. Eggs are up. Groceries are up. And now Hilton wants to sell Californians that same tired lie by holding Trump’s hand on stage. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Sad because millions of families are getting squeezed every single day. Funny because Hilton seriously thinks voters will fall for it twice. Here’s a thought, Steve. Maybe just promise them a pony while you’re at it.

And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday April 23, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is This The Biggest Energy Crisis In History?

As Trump continues his war by tweet, on his Nazi infested social media site, ordering the Navy to ‘shoot and kill any boat’ laying mines in Hormuz Strait, the head of the International Energy Agency just sounded the loudest alarm yet. Fatih Birol told CNBC this morning the world is facing the biggest energy security threat in history. Thirteen million barrels of oil a day. Gone. The Strait of Hormuz sits under a double blockade, with neither Iran nor the United States letting ships pass. Before Trump’s war, twenty million barrels of oil and fuel moved through that strait every single day. Europe’s jet fuel supply from Middle East refineries has basically collapsed to zero. Birol warns of energy rationing, runaway inflation, and economies stalling out worldwide. This is what happens when a reckless president starts a war he can’t end. The whole global economy is paying the price, and so are you.

Why Did Trump Fire His Own Navy Secretary In The Middle Of A War?

Navy Secretary John Phelan is out. Just like that. Effective immediately. And nobody will say why. Pete Hegseth pushed him out Wednesday while the Navy is literally enforcing a blockade against Iran. Thirty-one ships redirected. Two boarded. And Trump fires the guy in charge. Phelan reportedly didn’t even know he was fired until he saw the Pentagon’s tweet. His replacement, Hung Cao, once claimed witches had taken over a town in California. You can’t make this up. Senators and Pentagon officials were blindsided. Journalist Sarah Longwell summed it up in one line. What the hell is going on? When you hand the Navy to donors and cronies during a shooting war, this is what you get. Chaos at the top while our sailors carry the load.

Trump Plots A Revenge Tantrum At The Press Dinner

Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Donald Trump is planning what The Daily Beast calls a revenge attack on the press. He’s going to trash the reporters covering his disastrous Iran war. Then he’s fleeing before anyone can roast him back. Why? Because he can’t bear to sit through the Wall Street Journal picking up a Katherine Graham award. For what? For exposing that bawdy birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to Jeffrey Epstein. A federal judge already tossed out Trump’s lawsuit against the Journal. Now over two hundred and fifty journalists are demanding the Correspondents’ Association forcefully oppose Trump’s war on press freedom. This is a president terrified of accountability. Terrified of being laughed at. And willing to torch the First Amendment to make the laughter stop.

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Is Kash Patel Running The FBI Like J. Edgar Hoover?

The FBI under Director Kash Patel opened an investigation into a New York Times reporter. Her crime? Elizabeth Williamson wrote a profile of Patel’s country-singer girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, revealing Patel was using FBI jets and a SWAT team to shuttle her around on your dime. Agents searched databases on Williamson. They wanted to charge her under federal stalking laws. The Justice Department finally shut it down, worried it was pure retaliation. Senator Chuck Schumer says Patel must be fired or forced to resign now. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says there’s no chance Patel didn’t know. Critics are calling it Hoover-esque abuse. This is the FBI weaponized against journalists. And when a free press becomes a target, democracy itself is next in line.

Your Airfare Just Jumped Twenty Percent

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told investors Wednesday your ticket prices are going up fifteen to twenty percent. Why? Because Trump’s Iran war sent jet fuel prices through the roof. United’s fuel is running four dollars and thirty cents a gallon, up fifty-five percent from just three months ago. The airline is cutting five percent of its flights. It’s already pushed through five fare hikes and jacked up baggage fees since mid-March. And here’s the kicker. Kirby says United will keep raising fares until it passes one hundred percent of the cost straight to you. A trip that cost a thousand bucks last year? That’s an extra two hundred dollars out of your pocket. Working families didn’t start this war. But they’re paying for it every time they fly.

Should Taxpayers Bail Out A Failing Airline?

Now Trump wants you to hand five hundred million dollars to Spirit Airlines. Yes, Spirit. The budget carrier that’s filed for bankruptcy twice in under a year. The one routinely ranked the worst airline in America. Trump’s war drove jet fuel prices so high that Spirit is now circling liquidation. So the White House is cooking up a taxpayer rescue where the government takes warrants for a potential stake in the company. Even Trump’s own Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy calls it throwing good money after bad. United’s Scott Kirby says there’s no crisis big enough to justify a bailout. Even conservatives are howling. This isn’t free markets. This isn’t capitalism. It’s crony welfare. Trump starts a war, fuel prices explode, and working taxpayers foot the bill to rescue his donor friends. Every single time.

And that’s the way it is, Today Thursday April 23rd, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is Putin Already Building the Army He’ll Use to Strike NATO?

Dutch military intelligence just dropped a sobering warning this morning. The MIVD says that under the most favorable conditions for Moscow, Russia could be ready to start a regional war with NATO within just one year after fighting stops in Ukraine. One year. That’s all the runway Putin needs. The Dutch report makes clear Moscow’s goal wouldn’t be to defeat the alliance outright. It’d be to split NATO apart through limited land grabs, maybe under the shadow of nuclear blackmail. Russia just tested a nuclear-powered cruise missile and a nuclear-powered torpedo. It’s likely stationed the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in Belarus. And Chinese companies are deepening their military technology collaboration with the Kremlin at an alarming pace. So what’s Donald Trump doing? He’s racing to hand Putin a ceasefire on terms that would free up Russian troops and tanks to reload for the next invasion. Every serious European intelligence service is shouting the same warning. And our president keeps siding with the man holding the match. If Putin moves on Estonia or Latvia, it won’t be a surprise. It’ll be a betrayal we saw coming from a mile away.

When Republicans Gerrymander It’s Patriotic But When Democrats Do It It’s a Rigged Election?

Donald Trump lost his mind yesterday. Virginia voters approved a referendum letting the state push through a mid-decade Democratic gerrymander that flips the congressional map from six Democrats and five Republicans all the way to ten Democrats and one Republican. Trump fired off a furious Truth Social rant screaming “A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT!” He whined about a “massive Mail In Ballot Drop” and called it another “Crooked Victory.” Now here’s the outrage you cannot miss. This is the exact same Donald Trump who personally pushed Republicans in Texas and Indiana to ram through their own mid-decade gerrymanders. When the GOP redraws maps behind closed doors to steal House seats, Trump cheers and calls it smart politics. When Democrats do the same thing legally, out in the open, through a public referendum voted on by actual Virginians, suddenly it’s a “rigged election” and a “travesty of justice.” That’s not principle. That’s not democracy. That’s a thug with one rulebook for his side and a different rulebook for yours. And every time he screams the word “rigged,” he’s training his followers to reject any election that Republicans don’t win.

Can the FBI Director Stay Sober Long Enough to Run the FBI?

House Judiciary Democrats led by Jamie Raskin just demanded FBI Director Kash Patel take a ten question alcohol abuse screening test under penalty of perjury. Why? An explosive Atlantic report, backed by more than two dozen sources, says Patel drinks to the point of illness, launches profanity-laced tirades at support staff, and passes out cold behind locked doors. Agents have reportedly needed SWAT-level breaching equipment just to wake him up. A viral video shows him chugging beers in the Team USA Olympic locker room on a taxpayer-funded trip to Italy. His drinking allegedly delayed the FBI response to the Brown University mass shooting and the Charlie Kirk assassination scene. Patel flatly denies it all, claims he’s “never been intoxicated on the job,” and he’s suing The Atlantic for two hundred fifty million dollars. Meanwhile the Department of Justice Ethics Handbook flat-out bans employees from habitually using intoxicating beverages to excess. Think about that. This is the man running the most powerful law enforcement agency on the planet. He has access to every secret this country holds. And he can’t answer a simple yes or no question without screaming about the “fake news mafia.”

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Why is the Trump Administration Hiding Proof the COVID Vaccine Worked?

The Washington Post broke a stunning story this morning. A peer-reviewed scientific report showing the COVID vaccine reduced hospital visits has been buried by the Trump administration. The study was cleared for publication in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Then Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health, stepped in and killed it. A twenty five year veteran of the Public Health Service told the Post he cannot recall the CDC ever stopping an MMWR report after it had already cleared scientific and editorial review. This comes one day after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified to Congress that he has “never been anti-vaccine.” That’s a lie. His own family publicly denounced him years ago for spreading vaccine misinformation. He’s cut five hundred million dollars from vaccine development. He’s hired medical quacks. A measles outbreak under his watch has already killed a child. One point two million Americans died in the pandemic. Now Kennedy’s hiding the science that would save the next million.

Did Trump Just Hire a Counterterrorism Chief Allegedly Cruising Sugar Daddy Websites?

This one you can’t make up. Julia Varvaro is the twenty nine year old Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism at the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, counterterrorism. An ex-boyfriend just filed a formal complaint with the DHS Inspector General claiming he spent forty thousand dollars on her in a three month fling. He says she used the alias “Alessia” on the sugar daddy website Seeking, offering “seductive sophistication” with the same photo she posts on Instagram. He claims she told him sugar daddies paid for her college education and that the Cartier jewelry on her wrists are “trophies.” Varvaro denies having the profile and says they were simply in an exclusive relationship. Here’s why this actually matters. When someone with top-level counterterrorism clearance is allegedly drowning in financial pressure and secret relationships, foreign intelligence services notice. That’s how you get blackmailed. That’s how classified secrets walk out the door. And this is who Trump trusts to stop terrorism on American soil.

Nearly Half of American Children Are Now Breathing Toxic Air

The American Lung Association dropped its twenty seventh annual “State of the Air” report this morning. The numbers are gut punching. Thirty three point five million American children, forty six percent of every kid in this country, live in counties that earned a failing grade for air quality. More than seven million children, ten percent of America’s kids, breathe air that fails on every single pollution measure tracked. In total, one hundred fifty two million Americans, forty four percent of the country, are stuck living in places the report grades F for ozone or particle pollution. Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Phoenix, and Fresno top the dirty list yet again. And here’s the kicker that should have every parent furious. The Trump EPA is right now rolling back the clean air protections that drove pollution down for fifty years. Every rollback means another kid with asthma. Another lung scarred for life. Another family funeral that didn’t have to happen. Clean air isn’t regulation. It’s self-defense. And Donald Trump’s EPA is tearing up the shield while our children breathe poison. That’s not small government. That’s a corporate giveaway paid for in children’s lungs.

And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, April 22, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Virginia Voters Torch Trump’s Midterm Power Grab

Virginia handed Donald Trump a black eye last night. Voters approved a constitutional amendment letting Democrats redraw the state’s congressional map, a move that could flip four Republican House seats in November. Governor Abigail Spanberger said Virginians pushed back against a president who claims he’s entitled to more Republican seats in Congress. The new map gives Democrats a shot at 10 of 11 seats, up from the current six. This is a direct response to Trump strong-arming Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina into rigging their own maps last year. California did the same thing Virginia just did. The scoreboard now favors Democrats heading into the midterms. When Trump tried to steal the House before a single ballot was cast, Virginia said no. And that changes everything.

Who Cashed In Five Hundred Million Dollars Fifteen Minutes Before Trump Paused the Iran Strikes?

This one’s going to make your blood boil. Reuters and the Financial Times report that somebody placed more than 500 million dollars in oil futures bets exactly fifteen minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social that he was pausing strikes on Iran. Oil prices crashed more than ten percent right after. Whoever made that bet walked off with a fortune. Congressman Ritchie Torres is calling it potentially the largest case of insider trading in history. He says no legitimate trader makes a 500 million dollar bet at 6:49 in the morning with no hedge unless they already know what’s coming. Somebody inside Trump’s orbit got the tip. And the SEC just sits on its hands while working Americans pay more at the pump.

Trump’s DOJ Indicts the People Who Track Nazis

The Southern Poverty Law Center has spent 55 years hunting Klansmen, neo-Nazis, and hate groups. Yesterday Trump’s Justice Department indicted them. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel filed 11 counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering. The charge? That the SPLC paid informants inside the Klan and Nazi groups to gather intelligence shared with the FBI to save lives. Blanche twisted that into manufacturing extremism. The SPLC calls the charges outrageous and false. Observers see the real message. If you track the far right, Trump’s DOJ will track you. This is what a weaponized Justice Department looks like. And the chilling effect on every watchdog group in America is the whole point.

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Is Trump Really Dumping Our Afghan Allies in the Congo?

Trump already shut down the resettlement program for Afghans who fought alongside American soldiers. Now the New York Times reports he’s in talks to ship as many as 1,100 of them to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That includes U.S. military interpreters, former Afghan special forces, and family members of American service members. More than 400 of them are children. The Congo is a war zone with massive refugee and humanitarian crises. Senator Tim Kaine called the plan insane. These people risked everything for our troops. We promised them safety when we left. Trump’s about to dump them in a country tearing itself apart. That’s not immigration policy. That’s a betrayal of every American who wore a uniform in Afghanistan.

Did the Fifth Circuit Just Bulldoze the Wall Between Church and State?

A conservative federal appeals court ruled 9 to 8 that Texas can force every public school classroom in the state to post the Ten Commandments. Every classroom. Every grade. The ruling tears up a 1980 Supreme Court precedent and green-lights similar laws already passed in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. Judge Stephen Higginson wrote in dissent that the framers intended to stop religious majorities from using political power to impose their faith on others. That’s exactly what’s happening now. Texas has 5.5 million public school kids from every faith and no faith. The state just told all of them which god they’re supposed to obey. This fight is headed to the Supreme Court. And the wall Jefferson built between church and state is hanging by a thread.

Does Our Health Secretary Spend More Time on Raccoon Parts Than on Americans?

And finally in closing. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got hauled before the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday. Congressman Troy Carter of Louisiana looked him dead in the eye and said he wished the man running American healthcare would spend more time on the American people and less time on whale heads, bear heads, and raccoon parts. Kennedy snapped back that he doesn’t talk about any of that. Except he does. He dumped a bear cub in Central Park. He chainsawed a whale’s head off and strapped it to his minivan. A new book says he cut the genitals off a dead raccoon beside I-684 while his kids waited in the car. This is the man in charge of your family’s health, your kids’ vaccines, your parents’ medicare. Laugh if you want. It stops being funny.

And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, April 22nd, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Can Trump’s Fed Pick Stand Up to the Man Who Picked Him?

Kevin Warsh went in front of the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, and Elizabeth Warren ripped into him from the opening bell. She called him Trump’s sock puppet. And she wasn’t alone. Even Republican John Kennedy asked Warsh if he’d be the president’s human sock puppet. Warren then asked Warsh one simple question. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election? Warsh wouldn’t answer. He hid behind a line about keeping politics out of the Fed. Then Warren pressed him on more than 100 million dollars in assets he’d failed to detail on his financial disclosure forms. Warsh is worth somewhere between 130 and 210 million dollars, which would make him the richest Fed chair in American history. And GOP Senator Thom Tillis says he’ll block the vote until the DOJ drops its criminal probe into Jerome Powell. Meanwhile Trump is out there screaming for lower interest rates. This is how they strip a central bank of its independence. Quietly, and in plain sight.

Have Trump and Netanyahu Just Blown Themselves Up Together?

That’s the question everyone’s asking after a brutal piece in The New Republic. Trump’s approval rating is hitting second-term lows every week. Support for the Iran war is below 40 percent. The Wall Street Journal reports his public bravado is covering up private panic about the November midterms. Over in Israel, Netanyahu’s coalition is tanking in the polls because he couldn’t say no to Trump’s pressure to end the war. More than 3,375 Iranians are dead. Thirteen American service members are dead. Taxpayers are out over 50 billion dollars. And all they got for it was a shipping corridor that was already open before they started the bombing. History’s going to judge this one hard. Two strongmen, one catastrophic war, and they’ve got nobody to blame but each other.

Is Trump About to Bail Out His Family’s UAE Business Partner with Your Money?

The Wall Street Journal reports the United Arab Emirates is asking the White House for a wartime financial lifeline. Something like a currency swap, because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is hammering their economy. UAE central bank governor Khaled Balama raised it directly with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And Kevin Hassett at the National Economic Council says the Trump administration would be happy to help. Well, isn’t that convenient. Jared Kushner took 200 million dollars from the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund for his investment firm. Then he pulled down another 1.5 billion from an Abu Dhabi outfit and Qatar’s wealth fund. The UAE dumped 2 billion into the crypto venture run by Eric and Don Junior, and Trump promptly lifted chip export restrictions. There’s also a Trump hotel going up in Dubai. Meanwhile, other countries hurt by this war have been told flat out they’re on their own. Pay the Trumps, get bailed out. Don’t pay, go pound sand. That’s the business model now.

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Who’s Raking in Millions on Donald Trump’s Iran War?

Right before Trump posts a market-moving Truth Social update about Iran, huge anonymous bets keep showing up on the exchanges. On March 23rd, over 500 million dollars in crude oil futures traded in the 15 minutes before Trump announced a pause in hostilities. On April 7th, somebody placed a 950 million dollar bet that oil would crash. Fifteen minutes later Trump announced a ceasefire and oil dropped 15 percent. Senators Warren and Whitehouse want a CFTC probe. Congressman Ritchie Torres put it best. He said the only two explanations are God, or an insider trader, and God doesn’t make bets on Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts. The White House quietly warned staff to stop betting on prediction markets. Somebody inside this administration is getting rich off a war that’s bleeding working people dry. Don’t Americans deserve to know who this is?

Will the Press Finally Stand Up to the Man Trying to Destroy Them?

The White House Correspondents’ Association is getting hammered by its own members. Ann Curry, Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, and Bill Press signed a letter demanding the WHCA use this weekend’s dinner to forcefully oppose Trump’s assault on the First Amendment. They’re listing the receipts. Retaliatory access bans. Coercive FCC investigations. Frivolous lawsuits. Defunding public broadcasting. Dismantling international broadcasting. Arresting journalists. Pardoning people who committed violence against reporters. And Trump is coming to speak at their dinner. FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who’s threatening to yank broadcast licenses over coverage he doesn’t like, is coming too. Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher calls Trump the biggest peacetime threat to the First Amendment in American history. One critic, Mark Jacob, nailed it. When you invite fascists to dinner, they devour you. The corporate press needs to decide right now whether it stands for a free press or for its own access. Should Americans turn their backs to this event?

What’s the FBI Director Hiding in That Whiskey Bottle?

And finally, the watchdog group Democracy Forward just handed the FBI a 20-day deadline. They want internal records on FBI Director Kash Patel’s alleged drinking and unexplained absences. This follows that bombshell Atlantic report from Sarah Fitzpatrick alleging Patel shows up hungover, drinks to obvious intoxication, and vanishes for stretches while time-sensitive operations wait. One former official said Patel is rightly paranoid he could lose his job at any minute. Agents have reportedly needed SWAT-style breaching equipment because Patel wouldn’t answer his door. There’s even a story about Patel freaking out, calling people and claiming he’d been fired, when really he just couldn’t log into his work computer. Patel slapped the Atlantic with a 250 million dollar defamation lawsuit, which now opens him up to full discovery. Democracy Forward wants every FBI email containing words like alcohol, drunk, hungover, and passed out. Under the Freedom of Information Act, the FBI has to cough them up. The man running the nation’s top law enforcement agency can’t hide forever.

And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday April 21st, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Did Trump reach for the nuclear codes?

Donald Trump’s story on Iran changes by the hour. In less than forty-eight hours this weekend, he swung from claiming Iran “agreed to everything” to threatening that the whole country’s getting blown up. He told ABC that Vance wouldn’t fly to Pakistan. Then his UN Ambassador and Energy Secretary said yes he would. Staff scrambled to clean up the mess. Trump claimed Iran promised never to close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran promptly announced they’re closing it. He told The Hill that gas prices will drop the minute this war ends. A week earlier he told Fox News they’d stay about the same. Iran’s Foreign Ministry flatly denied they’d agreed to hand over enriched uranium. Vance proposed a twenty-year nuclear moratorium at the talks. Trump rejected his own VP’s offer, saying “I don’t like the twenty years.” And now retired CIA analyst Larry Johnson alleges on the Judging Freedom podcast that Trump reached for the nuclear codes on Saturday, and General Dan Caine stood up and said no. That’s unconfirmed but deeply troubling. This is who’s got the button.

Are Trump’s scandals drowning out democracy?

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned yesterday. And what a greatest-hits list she leaves behind. She allegedly had an affair with her own security detail. She kept bourbon, Kahlua, and champagne in her office. She took staff to a strip club on a government trip. She used taxpayer dollars for fake official trips to visit friends. Her husband got banned from Labor Department headquarters after two female employees accused him of sexually assaulting them. And she reportedly retaliated against those women. Meanwhile her elderly father was texting young female staffers asking them to keep their meetings “private.” She’s the third woman Trump has pushed out of his cabinet in seven weeks. Kristi Noem gone in March. Pam Bondi gone earlier this month. Meanwhile cabinet men with worse track records keep their jobs. And that’s just one scandal. Steve Witkoff ran Signal chats from Russia. Nvidia got cleared to sell chips to China for a twenty-five percent kickback. Trump tried to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over bogus mortgage fraud claims. Vance is meddling in prosecutions. Steve Bannon once said the way to beat the media is to flood the zone. It’s working. Democracy dies when nobody can keep track.

Does this administration’s cruelty have any bottom?

Meet Sergeant First Class Jose Serrano. Twenty-seven years in the Army. Deployed to Afghanistan. On April 14th, his wife Deisy walked into an El Paso immigration office for her Parole in Place interview, the program designed to protect military spouses. ICE arrested her on the spot. A federal judge granted her protection from deportation to El Salvador back in 2019 under the Convention Against Torture. So Stephen Miller’s ICE plans to ship her to Mexico instead, a country she’s never lived in. Serrano can’t visit her because active-duty soldiers can’t travel to Mexico. And this is the policy. The administration’s already spent forty million dollars shipping migrants to places like the Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan. Over a hundred thirty-three thousand per person. This is what cruelty as policy looks like.

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Are Israeli soldiers using rape as a weapon in the West Bank?

A new report from the West Bank Protection Consortium says yes. Researchers interviewed eighty-three Palestinian communities and documented sixteen cases of conflict-related sexual violence over three years. And those are just the cases survivors were willing to report. Palestinian men, women, and children describe forced nudity, invasive body cavity searches, Israeli soldiers exposing themselves to minors, and threats of rape. In Wadi as-Seeq, settlers and soldiers stripped villagers, urinated on them, and attempted to assault one man with a broom handle. They photographed it and shared the pictures. Girls are quitting school. Parents are marrying off daughters as young as fifteen to protect them. More than two thirds of families surveyed said rising sexual violence was the breaking point that made them leave their land. That’s ethnic cleansing by humiliation. And we’re funding it.

Will Silicon Valley turn your nurse into a gig worker?

A report just out from the Roosevelt Institute sounds the alarm on what they’re calling Uber for Nursing. Companies like ShiftKey, ShiftMed, CareRev, and Clipboard Health have raised hundreds of millions from venture capital to turn bedside nursing into piecework. Nurses bid against each other for shifts by offering to work for less. One nurse’s twenty-three dollars an hour ends up at thirteen after the app’s safety fee, insurance fees, payday fees, and shift fees. No supervisor. No accountability. No training at the facility. And now these companies are running the Uber playbook in state legislatures, lobbying to get nurses classified as independent contractors with no labor protections. Colorado already passed it. Your loved one’s nurse could be a stranger who just bid lowest on an app. That’s not healthcare. That’s a race to the bottom with your life.

And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday April 21st. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is The American Dream Dying Right Before Our Eyes?

A new Times YouGov poll tells us the American Dream is gasping for air. Fifty-nine percent of Americans now say the dream’s less reachable today than when they were growing up. Only 45 percent think they can achieve it even if they work hard. The partisan split’s stark. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say the dream exists for everyone. Only 28 percent of Democrats agree. A Wall Street Journal poll last year found nearly 70 percent of adults say the dream never held up or doesn’t anymore. A record low. Men and women, rich and poor, young and old, all feel the squeeze. And here’s the kicker. For the first time in over fifty years, more people are leaving America than coming in. About 150,000 more. That’s what forty years of trickle-down economics, union-busting, and billionaire worship gets us. A country so broken, working people are heading for the exits.

World Leaders Mock Trump’s Iran War Lies Behind His Back

Raw Story reports that foreign officials, even our closest allies, are privately laughing at Donald Trump over his wildly conflicting statements on the Iran war. One senior Israeli official put it this way, and I quote, if we put Trump’s statements into ChatGPT, it will implode. End quote. Why? Because Trump keeps declaring America’s already won the war, though none of his stated war aims have been met. He falsely claimed the Strait of Hormuz fully re-opened. He falsely claimed many countries were sending warships to help the U.S. He announces ceasefires that Iran immediately denies. He issues genocidal threats, sets deadlines, then walks them back days later. Israeli officials told Channel 12 they do believe Trump wants a negotiated end to the war, but nobody can read him. This is the man holding the nuclear codes. When even Israeli officials think his brain short-circuits ChatGPT, we’ve got a serious problem. America’s word used to mean something. Now the world’s snickering behind our backs.

Why Should Democrats Finally Fight Fire With Fire?

Tomorrow, Virginia voters decide whether to temporarily suspend their bipartisan redistricting commission and let Democrats redraw the state’s congressional map. If it passes, Republicans lose four House seats. Here’s why that’s fair. Republicans have rigged maps for decades. In Wisconsin, they hold 75 percent of House seats while winning just 48 percent of the statewide vote. In North Carolina, 71 percent of seats on 48 percent of the vote. Nine more seats are being stolen from Democrats through mid-decade Republican redistricting in Texas, Ohio, Missouri, and North Carolina. Only 9 percent of Americans think partisan gerrymandering should be legal. That’s on par with folks who believe Bigfoot’s real. Democrats keep introducing bills to ban gerrymandering nationwide. Republicans keep killing them. So until the rules change, Democrats have a moral duty to use every legal tool to stop Trump’s plan to rig the midterms. A fair fight only works if both sides fight fair.

Trump Crashes The Press Dinner He Spent A Decade Hating

This Saturday, Donald Trump ends a ten-year boycott and walks into the White House Correspondents Association dinner. The same press he calls fake news, enemy of the people, treasonous. The same press he sues, bans from briefings, and strips of White House access. So what could go wrong? Plenty. The WHCA is handing the Wall Street Journal its top honor that night, the Katherine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability. For what? For breaking the story about Trump’s filthy birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. Trump will be sitting right there when they hand it out. The correspondents picked a mentalist named Oz Pearlman to headline after they cancelled comedian Amber Ruffin for refusing to censor herself. The press corps spent the past year losing access while pretending to fight back. Now they’re inviting the man who shut them out to dinner. That’s not journalism. That’s surrender.

Did An ICE Agent Just Pull A Gun On Civilians And Flee?

Hennepin County prosecutors have charged ICE agent Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. with two felony counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. And he’s on the run. Back in February, Morgan was driving an unmarked SUV with no ICE markings, on the shoulder of a Minnesota highway, trying to pass other cars. When a civilian vehicle moved back into traffic, Morgan drew his firearm and aimed it at the two people inside. They were so terrified they called 911. Morgan faces up to seven years in prison and fourteen thousand dollars in fines on each count. A warrant went out on April 16. His whereabouts? Unknown. The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t said a word. This is what happens when you turn federal agents into a paramilitary force with no accountability and let them run masked through our neighborhoods. America used to lock up criminals. Now we put them in uniforms.

Will Clean Energy Finally Break Big Oil’s Grip On Our Wallets?

Democrats are finally connecting the dots progressives have been drawing for years. Trump’s Iran war has sent Brent crude up nearly 32 percent. U.S. gasoline prices up almost 40 percent. Jet fuel up over 92 percent in some places. Americans are paying more than four bucks a gallon at the pump. Meanwhile, domestic oil companies could rake in an extra 63 billion dollars in profit from this war alone. Congressman Ro Khanna’s pushing a bill to ban gasoline exports when prices top $3.12 a gallon, plus a windfall tax on the oil giants. Energy Secretary Chris Wright just defended Trump’s budget that slashes billions from renewable energy, solar, and even the Weatherization Assistance Program that saves low-income families 370 bucks a year. The International Energy Agency says 91 percent of new renewable power is now cheaper than fossil fuels. Clean energy isn’t a luxury. It’s how we break the warmongers’ grip on our paychecks.

And that’s the way it is, Tonight Monday April 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Iran Tells Trump to Shove It After Genocide Threat

Iran isn’t playing Trump’s game anymore. After the president threatened Sunday to “blow up” the whole country of 90 million people if they don’t sign a deal by Wednesday, Iranian officials say they won’t negotiate with an erratic leader. One official said Trump “lacks both a coherent plan and the capacity” to secure even a temporary deal. Trump claimed Iranian negotiators were flying to Islamabad Monday to meet with JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff. Iran’s state news agency called that “a media game.” Threatening to bomb civilians and demolish infrastructure is a genocidal threat from a U.S. president. Sixty-seven percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war. When a president threatens mass murder to save face, which is a war crime, democracy itself hangs in the balance.

Is the White House About to Crash and Burn?

The panic inside Trump’s inner circle is real. Politico reports strategists close to the president are terrified rising gas prices will wipe out Republicans in November. One source warned, “If we don’t see the three dollar gallon of gas, we’re gonna get killed.” Since Trump launched his war on Iran February 28, the average gallon has jumped more than a dollar. That’s the biggest monthly spike since tracking began in 1967 under Lyndon Johnson. Gas is now $4.05 a gallon. Trump’s own energy secretary Chris Wright admitted Sunday that prices might not drop below three dollars until 2027. Iran’s partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz is choking off a fifth of the world’s oil supply. Working families are paying for Trump’s war of choice. They’re going to remember in November.

Will Vance Stab Trump in the Back to Save Himself?

JD Vance is cornered. The Guardian’s Simon Tisdall writes the vice president’s poll numbers are cratering and his 2028 hopes are crumbling. Tisdall calls Vance “a crude opportunist, a self-proclaimed hillbilly peddling political moonshine.” But Vance has one card left to play. Trump can’t fire an elected vice president. Under the 25th Amendment, Vance could help fire Trump. A group of congressional Democrats wants him to join a commission that could do exactly that if Trump is judged unfit. Tisdall says Vance will bide his time, but Trump’s Iran fiasco and unhinged behavior are eroding support, and that hurts Vance too. Vance’s lead over Marco Rubio for the 2028 nomination keeps slipping. When sycophants start plotting escape routes, the regime is rotting from the inside.

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Trump Tries to Pin a Medal of Honor on Himself

Here’s one for the history books. The Wall Street Journal reports Trump privately considered awarding himself the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration this country gives. The man took five draft deferments during Vietnam. He never wore a uniform. Insiders say Trump panicked in early April after a U.S. fighter jet was shot down over Iran. He screamed at aides for hours, obsessed over the 1979 hostage crisis, and blamed the Europeans. Gas prices averaged $4.09 that day. Then he mused about pinning his own chest with the nation’s highest military honor. Officials say he sometimes loses focus, drifting off to talk about his White House ballroom while soldiers die. A draft dodger dreaming up a medal for himself while the country burns. You can’t make this stuff up.

Why Are Middle-Aged Americans Falling Apart?

A new review in Current Directions in Psychological Science uncovered something deeply wrong in America. Researchers at Arizona State, Brandeis, and two German universities tracked adults ages 50 to 65 across multiple countries. Americans in that group are lonelier, more depressed, with worse memory and weaker grip strength than earlier generations. Meanwhile, folks that age in Northern Europe are actually getting healthier and happier. What’s the difference? Europe invests in families. Cash transfers, paid parental leave, subsidized childcare. America doesn’t. Healthcare here drains bank accounts. Wages stagnate. Adult kids can’t afford to leave home. Aging parents need care. Income inequality keeps climbing. This isn’t fate. Other wealthy nations made different choices and their middle-aged citizens are thriving. We can too. The suffering isn’t inevitable.

Could Two Minutes a Day Really Save Your Life?

Here’s some good news to end on. A new study in the European Heart Journal found that just one to two minutes a day of vigorous activity, broken into short bursts, lowers your risk of chronic disease and early death. Researchers call it VILPA, vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity. Sounds fancy. It’s really just climbing stairs quickly, carrying heavy groceries, or hustling up a hill. Not a gym membership. Not a training plan. Just moving with purpose. When you push harder even briefly, your heart works, your muscles fire, and your mitochondria multiply. That builds strength and resilience. The older we get, the more we need intensity, not less. Avoiding it only speeds the decline we dread. So take the stairs. Walk faster. Your future self will thank you.

And that’s the way it is, Today Monday, April 20, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Will Republicans Face Daily War Votes as Polls Collapse?

House Democrats are done playing nice on Donald Trump’s illegal war with Iran. They’re rolling out an aggressive new strategy. Introduce a war powers resolution every single day the House is in session until one passes or Trump ends this reckless war. The plan came out of a Progressive Caucus lunch Thursday and got traction even with centrist Democrats. And here’s why. A CBS poll shows 60 percent of Americans disapprove of this war. 64 percent disapprove of how Trump is handling it. Gas is pushing five bucks a gallon in Nevada. Republicans are sticking with Trump for now, but with the 2026 midterms looming, that wall could crack. Congress has a constitutional duty to rein in a reckless president. That’s the whole point.

AIPAC Democrat Sinks War Powers Resolution by a Single Vote

And here’s the outrage. The House War Powers Resolution to end Trump’s Iran war failed Thursday by one vote. 213 to 214. Every Democrat voted to end the war except one. Jared Golden of Maine. The same Jared Golden who has pocketed over 817 thousand dollars from AIPAC during his career. He sided with Republicans to let Trump’s war grind on. And this happened the very same day Democrats were vowing to force a vote on this every single day the House is in session. Golden claimed the resolution would “weaken our hand.” What it would do is bring our troops home. One AIPAC Democrat stood between Congress and a constitutional check on presidential war powers. That’s what bought politicians look like.

Will ICE Finally Face Real Accountability?

Something historic just happened in Minnesota. A Hennepin County prosecutor criminally charged an on-duty ICE agent with two counts of second degree assault. Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. allegedly pulled a gun on two civilians in broad daylight during a road rage incident on Highway 62 back in February. County Attorney Mary Moriarty filed the charges Thursday. A nationwide warrant is out for his arrest. This is the first state criminal prosecution of a federal immigration agent since Trump’s Operation Metro Surge began. ICE shot three people dead in Minneapolis. Zero charges, until now. Moriarty said worrying about federal blowback is “not a concern of ours.” Her job is to enforce state law. When an administration acts like it’s above the law, one county attorney with a spine can change everything.

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Is Our Global Food System Teetering on Collapse?

Trump’s Iran war didn’t just spike your gas prices. It’s threatening to crash the global food supply. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly one third of the world’s seaborne fertilizer trade. Since the February 28 bombing, tanker traffic through that strait has collapsed by more than 90 percent. Fertilizer prices have jumped 20 to 40 percent. The World Food Program warns up to 45 million people could face life threatening hunger. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization says we have a three month window before planting decisions get locked in for the whole season. Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya, Sri Lanka, all of them staring down a food emergency. Here at home, American corn farmers are switching to soybeans because they can’t afford the fertilizer. Your grocery bill is about to get a whole lot uglier. That’s what reckless war does.

Trump Thumbs His Nose at RFK Jr. with CDC Pick

Donald Trump threw his own health secretary under the bus Thursday. He nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz to run the CDC, a former deputy surgeon general described by her ex-boss as “really wicked smart, and not subject to rumor and conspiracy theories.” Translation. Unlike Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Schwartz would be the fourth person tapped to run the CDC during Trump’s second term. Kennedy fired the last confirmed director, Susan Monarez, after she refused to play along with his anti-vax agenda. A federal judge last month ruled Kennedy’s vaccine schedule changes were “arbitrary and capricious.” Measles is surging. Americans are dying of preventable diseases. And Trump, for once, seems to be quietly admitting that his own health secretary is a walking public health disaster.

Has Trump Got Dementia or Is He Just Morbidly Rich?

And finally this. At a Las Vegas tax event Thursday, Donald Trump stopped mid-speech to ask what a corner store is. Quote. “What is a corner store? I’ve never heard that term. Who the hell wrote that?” Let that sink in. The President of the United States has never heard of a corner store. He then said poor people “don’t think in terms of deductions” because, well, they don’t have any. Meanwhile gas is over four dollars a gallon and pushing five in Nevada, and he called the Iran war “a little diversion.” So the question today. Is Trump suffering from dementia, or is he just so morbidly rich that he’s completely disconnected from how ordinary Americans live? Either way, he’s steering the country, and that should terrify all of us.

And that’s the way it is, Today Friday April 17, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Did Trump just hand Iran diplomacy to two real estate guys who flunked out?

Donald Trump’s Iran negotiations are collapsing, and veteran diplomats are calling it a disaster. Speaking to Time magazine, former State Department Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller said Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff get a flat F in diplomacy. Two Manhattan real estate developers, completely out of their depth, trying to navigate one of the most complex geopolitical stages on earth. Their track record? Failed Russia-Ukraine talks. Stalled Israel-Hamas negotiations. Now a nuclear crisis with Iran. Former Ambassador David Satterfield said real negotiators need red lines, realistic assessments, and internal discipline. Kushner and Witkoff have none of it. And here’s the bigger problem. Trump surrounds himself with yes-men who won’t tell him the truth. Four Defense Secretaries. Six National Security Advisors. When nobody can speak truth to power, diplomacy dies, and wars begin. This is how empires stumble into catastrophe.

Trump threatens to fire Jay Powell as Fed showdown explodes

Trump says he’ll fire Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell if the Senate doesn’t confirm his replacement Kevin Warsh by May 15. But there’s a problem. Republican Senator Thom Tillis won’t vote yes until the Justice Department drops its bogus investigation of Powell over Fed renovation costs. On Tuesday, three Justice Department officials, sent by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, showed up unannounced at the Fed’s construction site to snoop around. Fed lawyers turned them away. A federal judge already quashed earlier DOJ subpoenas, ruling there’s abundant evidence the real purpose is to harass Powell into resigning or bending on interest rates. This is what authoritarian capture of an independent central bank looks like. Trump wants lower rates no matter what it does to inflation, and he’s using federal prosecutors as a political weapon. When the president can fire the Fed chair for not obeying, your savings and your paycheck are next.

Is Trump calling Epstein rape survivors “victims or whatever”?

Trump set off a firestorm Thursday when he brushed off Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors as, quote, victims or whatever. He made the comment outside the White House when asked about public hearings for Epstein survivors, falsely claiming the women had refused to testify under oath. That was a lie. Progressive commentator Aaron Parnas shot back that no one refused. The survivors told Congress it wasn’t their job to testify again after they’d already spoken with the FBI. Commentator Polly Sigh went further, pointing out that at least one of Epstein’s survivors has accused Trump himself of raping her when she was a child. NHL analyst Mike Rifkin put it plainly. Trump may have recently depicted himself as Jesus, but he is the devil. Think about what it says when the President of the United States calls rape survivors victims or whatever. That’s not a slip of the tongue. That’s contempt for women, contempt for the truth, and contempt for justice itself.

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Why is ICE hiding how immigrants keep dying in custody?

Sixteen immigrants have died in ICE detention already this year. In all of 2024, eleven died. Last year, thirty-three died. The most in more than two decades. And now ICE is deliberately hiding the details. Until December, the agency released three-page reports on every death with full timelines, medical records, and causes of death. Now you get four paragraphs. At Camp East Montana in El Paso, a detainee’s death was ruled a homicide by the local coroner, but ICE called it suicide. A Nicaraguan man with no criminal record, Victor Diaz, died eight days after being shipped there from Minneapolis. Another man in Georgia was found hanging after being arrested for an expired driver’s license. Sixty thousand people still in custody, nearly double pre-Trump levels. Facilities overcrowded, hot, plagued by illness. When a government kills people and hides the records, that’s not immigration enforcement. That’s cruelty by design.

Clarence Thomas caught running what critics call an outright psyop

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is being hammered by political analysts for a speech he gave at the University of Texas Law School denouncing progressivism as a threat to America. Thomas, 77 years old, told the audience that progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the Declaration of Independence, and that our rights come from God, not government. Investigative journalist Jacke Singh called it an outright psyop attempt. Narrative inversion. Manipulation from a sitting justice. Mehdi Hasan said if Democrats had a spine, they’d run on impeaching this financially corrupt justice. Norm Ornstein called Thomas the most corrupt justice in American history. Meanwhile, Trump is openly floating replacing two or three justices before the midterms. Thomas isn’t a neutral judge. He’s a political operative in a black robe who takes luxury vacations from billionaires and then lectures the country about God and freedom. The court has become a wrecking ball aimed at democracy itself.

California’s ocean is cooking, and it’s terrifying scientists

The Pacific Ocean off California is simmering in an extreme marine heat wave that experts say could reshape the coast for months. The Scripps Pier in La Jolla has already broken more than twenty-five daily temperature records this year. Yesterday the surface water hit 68.5 degrees. Almost eight degrees above average. The sea bottom was the hottest April 15 in a hundred years of records. The hot water stretches from San Francisco all the way to Mexico. NOAA scientist Dillon Amaya said it’s reminiscent of what they called the blob, a killer heat wave from 2014 to 2016 that wiped out seabirds, starved sea lions, collapsed fisheries, and destroyed kelp forests. There’s now a 70 percent chance this heat wave lasts through December. And an El Nino is coming to make it worse. Climate scientist Daniel Swain said every marine heat wave from here on will be warmer than the last. This is global warming, live and in real time. And our government is still subsidizing the fossil fuel companies burning the planet.

And that’s the way it is, Tonight Thursday April 16, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Does Trump’s Iran War Mean You Won’t Be Flying?

The world’s top energy watchdog just dropped a bombshell. Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, told the Associated Press that Europe has maybe six weeks of jet fuel left. Six weeks. He called this the largest energy crisis the world has ever faced, driven by the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which carries twenty percent of global oil supply. Flight cancellations could hit soon. Meanwhile, Chevron executive Andy Walz told struggling Americans on CBS that the answer is simple. Just drive less. Brent crude hovers around a hundred dollars a barrel. Gas averages over four dollars a gallon nationally, up more than a dollar since the war started in February. The oil executives say conserve. Working families say they can’t afford to get to work.

Did a Stop-the-Steal Republican Just Steal Your Vote in Michigan?

A far-right county clerk in Michigan got caught illegally purging voters. Victoria Bishop, Antrim County Clerk, a Republican elected in 2024 on a Stop the Steal platform, sent cancellation notices to voters who hadn’t participated in the last two elections, then altered their registration status in the state’s official Qualified Voter File without any legal authority. Michigan law is explicit. You can’t remove a voter’s registration just because they missed an election. Bishop didn’t even independently verify the information she acted on. She’s married to a conservative talk radio host who claims the 2020 election was stolen. State election officials opened an investigation after voters and local clerks reported concerning activity. They call it election integrity. What it actually is, right now in 2026? Voter suppression. Plain and simple.

Has Tulsi Gabbard Turned the Intelligence Community Into Trump’s Personal Revenge Machine?

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sent criminal referrals to the Justice Department targeting the whistleblower and the former inspector general whose work helped trigger Trump’s 2019 impeachment. Gabbard claims newly declassified documents prove a deep state conspiracy. But those documents actually describe the whistleblower as a star performer, credible and trustworthy. Inspector General Michael Atkinson did his job. Trump fired him for it. Now Gabbard wants him prosecuted. CIA Director Ratcliffe separately referred former CIA Director John Brennan for criminal investigation. House Democrat Jim Himes says this move is designed to chill every future whistleblower. Criminal referrals aren’t charges. Not yet. But the message this administration sends is crystal clear. Expose Trump, and they come after you. That’s not government. That’s a protection racket.

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Scientists Warn a Catastrophic Ocean Collapse Is Now Far More Likely Than We Thought

New research published this week delivers a frightening warning. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, better known as AMOC, the massive ocean conveyor belt that regulates climate across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, is significantly more likely to collapse than scientists previously believed. The most pessimistic climate models are the most accurate. A collapse would plunge western Europe into brutal winters, devastate monsoon systems across Africa, raise Atlantic sea levels by up to a meter, and upend food supplies for hundreds of millions of people. AMOC is already at its weakest point in sixteen hundred years. Scientist Stefan Rahmstorf now puts the odds of collapse above fifty percent by 2100. Trump gutted the EPA. We’re racing toward a climate cliff, and the people in charge just floored it.

Did Pete Hegseth Really Preach the Gospel of Quentin Tarantino at the Pentagon?

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered what he called a sacred prayer at a Pentagon worship service Wednesday. Turns out he was quoting Pulp Fiction. The prayer was actually adapted from Samuel L. Jackson’s famous monologue in the 1994 Tarantino film, complete with great vengeance and furious anger. Hegseth never once mentioned the movie. Hours before the service, House Democrats filed six articles of impeachment against him, accusing him of war crimes and abuse of power. The Pentagon called it a charade. Hegseth has been holding regular Christian worship services inside the Pentagon for months, arguing faith should directly shape military decisions. He calls himself Secretary of War. Now he’s preaching Tarantino as scripture. The church called. It wants its Bible back.

Why is RFK Jr. Harvesting Dead Raccoon’s Penises?

And finally. A new biography of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. contains a journal entry from the man himself. Kennedy writes that he once pulled his car over on Interstate 684, walked to a road-killed raccoon, and cut out its penis to study later, while his children waited patiently in the car. He told reporters in 2024 that he keeps a freezer full of roadkill. This is the same man who dumped a bear carcass in Central Park and strapped a whale head to his car roof. He now controls American health policy, slashing food safety rules and gutting public health programs. Don’t worry about your health secretary. He’s fine. He’s got a raccoon penis in his freezer.

And that’s the way it is. Today Thursday, April 16th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Is Trump Already Plotting the Invasion of Cuba?

While he’s still waging an illegal war against Iran, Donald Trump has turned his sights to Cuba. Multiple sources tell reporters that the Trump White House has quietly issued a new directive to officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the government to ramp up planning in case the U.S. “intervenes” in the island nation. Trump has been publicly dangling invasion talk for weeks. “We may stop by Cuba after we’re finished with this,” he said, while standing next to a woman in a DoorDash grandma shirt at a White House photo-op. He’s already imposed a brutal oil blockade on Cuba, cutting off the fuel shipments the country relied on from Venezuela after Trump’s military operation removed Maduro from power in January. Cuba has lost ten percent of its population to mass migration since 2021. Three nationwide blackouts hit in March alone. Food shortages are pushing millions toward malnutrition. And now the Pentagon is being told to get ready. One military intervention apparently wasn’t enough for this man.

Mexico Launches Free Healthcare for Everyone While Trump Guts American Health Programs

Here’s a contrast that should make every American furious. On April 7th, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum signed a presidential decree establishing universal free healthcare for all Mexicans at any public health institution in the country. The rollout begins in 2027 with emergency care, adding lab work, radiotherapy, and specialized services later that year, and full universal hospitalization and prescription drug coverage by 2028. Meanwhile, Trump’s 2027 budget hacks 15.8 billion dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services. He’s pushing to automatically enroll seniors into private Medicare Advantage plans, which insurance companies have used to fraudulently overbill the government by the trillions through a practice called upcoding, making patients look sicker than they are. Trump says the federal government just can’t afford healthcare. Funny how he always finds the money for war. Mexico just enshrined healthcare as a constitutional right. America is sprinting in the opposite direction, and working people are going to pay for it with their lives.

Does Anyone in America Still Trust Trump on Taxes?

On this Tax Day, CNN’s Harry Enten laid out the numbers and they are devastating. Trump’s net approval rating on taxes has collapsed 30 points since his first term. He’s now 28 points underwater overall on the tax issue. But with independents? He’s 58 points underwater. Fifty-eight points. That’s not a slip. That’s a collapse. His “One Big Beautiful Bill” tax package isn’t pulling him out of the hole. Americans give it a net approval rating of negative 20 points overall, and among independents it sits at negative 41. The bill that was supposed to be Trump’s big legislative trophy is a political anchor dragging him straight toward the midterms. You can’t cut taxes for billionaires, gut healthcare and social programs, blow up the deficit, and torch the global economy with chaotic tariffs and then expect working people to cheer. They’re not cheering. And November is getting closer every single day.

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Trump Weaponizes Jesus Again and Dares Christians to Stop Him

First, Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ healing the sick. His own MAGA base erupted in outrage and the post was deleted. Then Trump claimed he thought it was a picture of himself “as a doctor.” Not Jesus. A doctor. Now, just days later, he’s posted another AI-generated Jesus image on Truth Social. This one shows Jesus and Trump standing side by side, with Jesus’s arm wrapped around the president. Trump’s caption mocks what he calls the “radical left lunatics” who objected to the original post. He’s not backing down. He’s escalating. This is a man impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse, convicted of felonies, and now draping himself in the image of the Son of God to own the libs. Real Christian leaders across this country are appalled. Republican elected officials are silent. When a president begins casting himself as a divine figure standing above all earthly accountability, that’s not politics. That’s something much more dangerous.

Hungary’s New Leader Bulldozes the State Propaganda Machine on Live Television

Days after his Tisza Party swept Viktor Orban out of power in a landslide, Hungary’s prime minister-elect Peter Magyar walked straight into the state broadcaster’s studio and told them to their faces they were done. On live radio and television, Magyar called the state outlet a “factory of lies,” said its propaganda was something that Joseph Goebbels and the North Korean leadership would admire, and vowed that once he takes power, the network will be shut down and replaced with something genuinely independent and impartial. The live interviews exploded into shouting matches. Magyar accused the broadcaster of airing fabricated stories about his own children during the campaign. Remember, Trump and JD Vance personally traveled to Hungary and campaigned for Orban. They lost. Democracy won. It’s a reminder that even the most entrenched authoritarian propaganda machines can be beaten when voters get a real choice and choose to fight back. America, take note.

Did Trump’s DOJ Think Ignoring Federal Court Orders Was Optional?

A federal judge in California just sanctioned a Trump Justice Department lawyer for repeatedly blowing off court orders in immigration detention cases. Chief U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley fined DOJ attorney Jonathan Yu after Yu missed multiple deadlines in a habeas corpus case. A court had ordered a detained immigrant released on April 3rd. Yu didn’t file the required compliance notice. The judge issued a show-cause order. Yu missed that deadline too. The freed man ended up stranded in Bakersfield without his identification, unable to get home to Utah, at real risk of being re-arrested by DHS. The court ordered Yu to return the man’s passport and driver’s license and file a status update. Yu missed that deadline as well. The judge wrote that “compliance with court orders is not optional.” Yu claimed he’d been assigned over 300 immigration habeas cases in three months. The judge made clear this wasn’t about workload. This was willful disregard. When the Justice Department treats federal court orders as mere suggestions, the rule of law isn’t bending. It’s breaking.

And that’s the way it is. Tonight Wednesday, April 15th, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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Good Morning, this is the Commonwealth Report. News for the public, not the powerful.

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Sanders Pulls the Pin on Trump’s Bomb Factory for Israel

Bernie Sanders is done asking nicely. This week, the Vermont senator is forcing Senate votes to block nearly half a billion dollars in arms sales to the Netanyahu government. We’re talking about $151.8 million worth of 1,000-pound bombs used in Gaza and Lebanon, and $295 million worth of Caterpillar bulldozers used to demolish Palestinian homes. Secretary of State Rubio invoked emergency powers to skip congressional review and rush these weapons through without a vote. “U.S. taxpayers have spent tens of billions in support of the racist, extremist Netanyahu government,” Sanders said. “Enough is enough.” Senate rules let Sanders force a floor vote with a simple majority and no filibuster. Sixty percent of Americans now view Israel unfavorably. The Democratic caucus is moving. These votes are on the record, and they matter.

Will Even Italy’s Meloni Walk Away From Israel?

Here’s one for the history books. Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Israel’s closest European allies, just suspended her country’s defense cooperation agreement with Israel. The deal, in place since 2003, covers the transfer of military equipment and technology research. Meloni acted after Israeli forces fired warning shots at a convoy of Italian UN peacekeepers in Lebanon. Italy’s foreign minister called Israel’s ambassador to Rome for the third time since 2024. Trump, furious at his political ally, publicly snapped at Meloni in an interview. Meanwhile, a European Citizens’ Initiative calling on the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel just crossed one million signatures. Israel dismissed Meloni’s move as meaningless, claiming the pact never had any substantive content. Try telling that to the million Europeans who disagree.

Is Trump Getting Ready to Seize Your Bank Account?

Here’s a story that should alarm every American. The Trump administration is moving forward on an executive order that would require banks to collect citizenship documentation from every customer. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed it’s already in process. The stated goal is pushing undocumented immigrants out of the banking system. But banking experts warn this would strip millions of ordinary Americans of their accounts, including Trump’s own voters. Only half of Americans have passports. In West Virginia, just two out of ten people own one. The ten states with the lowest passport rates all voted for Trump every time. One in ten Americans can’t locate their birth certificate. No bank account means no direct deposit, no bill pay. This isn’t immigration enforcement. It’s economic warfare on working people.

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Can Virginia’s New Law Finally Bury the Electoral College?

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed a landmark bill this week, making Virginia the nineteenth member of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Under the compact, member states pledge their electoral votes to whoever wins the national popular vote, not just their state winner. Virginia brings the compact to 222 of the 270 electoral votes needed to take effect, just 48 short. When it hits 270, it ends the Electoral College’s power to hand the presidency to someone who lost the popular vote, something that’s happened five times, including twice for Donald Trump. Sixty-three percent of Americans support the popular vote system, per Pew Research. Republicans are calling it unconstitutional. That’s no surprise. The Electoral College is the only thing keeping them in power.

Khanna Fights Back Against Big Oil’s War on Your Wallet

Gas prices are on fire and getting worse. Crude oil is trading above $100 a barrel because of Trump’s war against Iran, and Americans are watching pump prices climb by the day. California Congressman Ro Khanna is introducing legislation to ban U.S. gasoline exports whenever the national average price exceeds $3.12 a gallon, a threshold we’ve already blown past. Here’s the outrage. America is now the world’s largest exporter of motor gasoline. While families struggle at the pump, Big Oil is shipping our supply overseas for maximum profit. Khanna says we need a new energy policy not driven by oil company greed. His bill faces long odds in this Congress. But the point is clear. Working people are bleeding at the pump while oil executives pocket the profits.

Mayor Mamdani Finally Gets to Eat the Rich

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani just scored his biggest win yet, and it tastes delicious. Governor Kathy Hochul, who had been blocking Mamdani’s tax-the-rich agenda for months, flipped and backed a brand-new annual tax on luxury second homes in New York City worth $5 million or more. This is the first pied-à-terre tax of its kind in New York State history. These are the apartments owned by billionaires and global elites that sit empty most of the year while working New Yorkers can’t pay rent. Hochul’s office estimates the tax will generate at least $500 million a year. Mamdani called it a step toward making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share. Sixty-two percent of New Yorkers support taxing the rich. Pull up a chair. The feast has begun.

And that’s the way it is. Today Wednesday, April 15, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.

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